Uurgh! It's all turned green!
Author
Discussion

bruce fielding

Original Poster:

2,244 posts

308 months

Sunday 21st March 2004
quotequote all
Please, please help me, you wonders of IT!

I have just converted from a single 80Gb HDD to two 250Gb HDDs.

I loaded XP onto one new drive and copied all the files over from the older drive. No problems - except that my "My Videos" folder now contains lots of files I can't access. And the weird thing is the file names have turned from black type to green type. I get error messages like "Access denied".

I've put up a couple of screenshots that might help here and here

I've tried changing the name of the computer to match the old one, logging on as everyone except Father Christmas, and lots of other basic thoughts, but all to no avail.

Can anyone help me, please?

Neilus

907 posts

308 months

Sunday 21st March 2004
quotequote all
I've not used XP, but a quick search of the MS website reveals that files shown in green are encrypted files.

This document may help www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/support/dataprot.mspx, I haven't read it so it may be completely useless.

Neil.

agent006

12,058 posts

290 months

Sunday 21st March 2004
quotequote all
OK.

1/ Right click on the folder that has the videos in.
2/ Select Properties
3/ Select the security tab
4/ Click advanced
5/ Click the Owner Tab
6/ Select your account from the list and tick the replace on subcontainers and objects box
7/ Click on the permissions tab, and add your username (or the everyone user name) to the list and give it full access.
8/ Tick the reset permissions on all child objects blah de blah.
9/ Click ok, then ok on the main properties.

Disclaimer, i tried this all on 2000, but i assume it's the same for XP.

agent006

12,058 posts

290 months

Sunday 21st March 2004
quotequote all
Ah, bollix, just noticed that the screen shots are full of encryption stuff. I have absolutely no clue at all about windows encryption i'm afraid.

sjg

7,660 posts

291 months

Sunday 21st March 2004
quotequote all
I'm hoping here that you still have that old 80Gb drive with a working windows install on it.

Change out the drives, putting it all back how it was, with the 80Gb as primary master. Then you have two options:

- export your encryption key, copy it somewhere, put the new drives back in, boot from them and import the key. See MS knowledgebase articles 241201 and 242296.

- switch off all encryption and copy the data again to the new drives.

If you don't have the original windows install on the old drive, the files with green filenames are unrecoverable.

bruce fielding

Original Poster:

2,244 posts

308 months

Monday 22nd March 2004
quotequote all
Nope...

Buggered.

Unless...

...someone knows better (hacker?)

arcturus

1,497 posts

289 months

Monday 22nd March 2004
quotequote all
Have a look here. I have not tried this software and cannot comment on its effectiveness, but there appears to be a 30 day free trial.

www.crackpassword.com/advanced_efs_data_recovery.html

sjg

7,660 posts

291 months

Monday 22nd March 2004
quotequote all
Sorry. The whole idea of filesystem encryption is so that files just can't be copied off and read (particularly relevant for laptops that might get stolen). That recovery software may be worth a go, but it was certainly designed to be non-trivial to break.

If it's any consolation, a lot of people get burned by this - switch on file encryption because it sounds like a good thing, then reinstall windows months later without backing up their keys and find their stuff is irretreivable. If the PC is part of a domain or directory, there should be a network account that can decrypt files, but no such safety net for standalone machines.

warmfuzzies

4,348 posts

279 months

Tuesday 23rd March 2004
quotequote all
Maybe this can help, hope its not too late.

www.tweakxp.com/tweak1590.aspx

Kevin